20/02/2018
LATEST TRAVEL NEWS
BOTSWANA
Air Botswana has suspended its Gaborone-Cape Town route as a result of the recent grounding of CemAir. The airline is rerouting all Cape Town ticketed passengers via Johannesburg at no additional charge.
DUBAI/ NEW ZEALAND
Emirates will launch a new daily service to Auckland, via Bali, on 14 June.
The flight will operate year-round, complementing the two daily services between Dubai and Bali that currently operate in the Northern hemisphere summer months.
KENYA
Kenya Airways has added three more weekly flights on its Johannesburg route, reinstating early morning flights on certain days, from 06 June. The flights will operate on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
At the same time, the airline will launch its new direct service to Cape Town, which will operate on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
MAURITIUS
Air Mauritius has added a fourth weekly flight on its Durban route, effective 18 April.
In addition to its Monday, Wednesday and Saturday flights, the airline will now also operate a flight on Sundays.
QATAR AIRWAYS
Qatar Airways will no longer allow passengers who have upgraded using either money or loyalty points, ‘Qmiles’ or ‘Qcredits’, to enter the airport lounges befitting their upgraded status. Passengers may only access the lounges as per their originally ticketed cabin.
The new policy applies to all classes of upgraded passengers.
RWANDA - NIGERIA/ GHANA AND SOUTH AFRICA
RwandAir will launch four weekly flights to Abuja, Nigeria from 15 April with the routing being Kigali-Abuja-Accra (Ghana). The flights will be available on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays.
RwandAir’s current daily flight between Kigali and Johannesburg is scheduled to connect with the new Abuja service.
The Zimbabwean government has granted rights to RwandAir to commence Kigali-Harare-Cape Town flights on 16 May. The flights between Harare and Cape Town will operate four times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
SOUTH AFRICA
FlySafair has rolled out the test phase of its in-flight mobile point-of-sale system, AviaPay, making it the first low-cost carrier to offer cashless transactions on all its flights. Currently, AviaPay is only available for catering services; however, plans are in place to offer a wider range of products, such as in-flight payments for car rental or airport parking. The new service accepts all Visa and MasterCard products, meaning that payment can be made with either a credit or debit card.
FlySafair has added Lanseria-George flights to its schedule for May to October and has upped frequencies on the route over peak holiday periods, such as school holidays and long weekends. The airline will operate 142 flights on this route in March and 138 in April, but only 73 in May.
According to CemAir’s CEO, good progress is being made with South African Civil Aviation Authority regarding reinstatement of the affected aircraft's airworthiness certificates. Inspection, the next phase of the review, is imminent and could see the airline starting limited operations. While CemAir offered a limited schedule between 17-20 February their flights were operated by a third party operator.